Miller won’t drag out ballot battle versus Murkowski in court if numbers don’t add

by Bridget Johnson - 11/14/10 2:41 PM ET

Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller said Saturday that he won’t drag out the ballot battle if the numbers aren’t adding up, but stressed that he isn’t throwing in the towel until absentee ballots from the military are counted.

Those are expected next week with a Wednesday deadline, and Miller believes he could get a boost from the servicemembers’ votes.

“I
think to call the race, to say that their vote doesn’t matter, to
forget about counting their votes, I think that’s an inappropriate
approach,” Miller said, according to the Associated Press.

The Saturday scrutiny of write-in ballots showed 89.6 percent cast without dispute for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Another 7.9 percent was being credited to Murkowski but being challenged by the Miller campaign on the basis of factors such as spelling and penmanship.

The Miller camp has claimed that misspellings of the senator’s name may not be mistakes but actually protest votes.

The AP reprorted that Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said the court fight will go forward “if the contested vote makes the difference.”

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